Forget ‘Whiter than white’ − here’s ‘Redder than red’!

‘More real red’

The other night, I was having some drinks with a friend, and I must have been rattling on about our new RGB laser rear-projection video walls. Guess I was still a bit over-excited. The colors are especially striking to me − and I must have said something like “it has the best red I’ve ever seen.” To which my friend jokingly replied: “You might consider using the slogan ‘Redder than red’ − but I guess that will bring up some legal issues.” “Not redder than red, but rather ‘more real red’,” I replied. Which (understandably) puzzled him.

“How can something be more red than red?” he asked me, serious again. “Because, well, red is red, isn’t it?” I could see his confusion. Telling people they might never have seen true red is about the same as saying we are actually living inside The Matrix. Yes, when you select the RGB color 255, 0, 0, the color you see on the screen isn’t truly red. It’s the closest to red that the screen can produce, but it’s not really red. If you take your computer and connect it to another display, you’ll notice the color looks different.

It’s all about color gamut

This graphic shows the visible color area, and how well a device (monitor or printer) can deliver color. The bigger the area that is covered, the better the device is at producing color. And indeed, the color gamut triangle for Barco’s RGB laser rear-projection video walls is larger than that of its competitors. You might never have noticed that reds are not that good on your monitor, until you see a display with a better color gamut.

Look at it this way: if you bump your head against a concrete wall, you’ll probably think concrete is the hardest material on the planet. Until you see a diamond at work…

For printers, things are even worse. The color gamut triangle for these devices is significantly smaller than that of a display. So printers perform more poorly than other devices, especially in the green domain.

Color gamut + brightness

Color can be of vital importance in control rooms − and that’s where the color gamut is very useful in comparing different displays. Some displays pump out a lot of brightness, but this often makes the colors look ‘washed out’. The fact that our new RGB laser video walls for 24/7 control rooms deliver the best possible color gamut and are the brightest on the market was actually what got me over-excited in the first place.

“So, if it’s impossible to show true primary colors on a display, why is the logo of your visualization company bright red?” my friend then asked. Well, touché, I replied… But have you ever seen the logo on our RGB laser rear-projection video wall?

This graphic shows the color gamut of Barco's RGB laser video wall against the general REC 709 recommendation for HD displays